The Beer for Everyone Project: Week 1

Tuesday

A decade ago, I proudly declared there was a beer for everyone. My co-worker, Nicole Simmons, didn’t believe me. She hated beers…all beers…pretty much all alcohol.

I took that as a challenge. Each week, I gave her a beer. She would go home and try it, recording video of herself drinking it. I was confident it would be relatively easy to find one.

Long story short: I was wrong. Very wrong. She hated most of the beers. There were a couple she didn’t mind, but in the end, I lost the challenge.

Now, it’s time for part two. Nicole and I have launched “The Beer for Everyone Project.” Each week, I will send Nicole home with a beer to try and she will record it. I will document her adventures here, and we will record a weekly podcast to talk about the project and chit chat about beer. Hey taste buds

I’m taking it a little more seriously this time. Because the last time we did this, I thought it would be easy, I started with some extreme beers, such as an eisbock and triple IPA, that I knew she would hate, just to mess with her. It put her on the defensive, even if subconsciously.

I also didn’t pay attention to what she likes. I picked beers I liked, thinking if I thought they were good, she would like them.

This time, I got a list of flavors she enjoys (citrus, most fruits, caramel, chocolate, cinnamon, vanilla, etc.), along with things she doesn’t like (onions, mushrooms, coffee, lavender, pepper, ginger, fennel, anise, etc).

I’m going to base my weekly choices around those flavors and hope I find something. If you ever have a suggestion, feel free to drop me a note in the comment section, via email (nmiller@wickedlocal.com) or on one of my various social media pages.

For the first week, I picked Anchor Brewing Company’s Steam beer. I really didn’t think she would like this one, but I wanted to get a kind of a baseline of her tastes. Steam is a classic beer and the closest to what most non-craft beer drinkers would say “tastes like beer,” that I’ll likely give Nicole.

As expected, Nicole didn’t like it. The good thing, I do see improvement since the first go around, when every beer tasted salty. This one did not taste salty to her, so I take that as a mild win.

Here are Nicole’s thoughts:

Using my experience from 10 years ago when we first embarked on this little experiment, I think the initial barometer for a beer is 1) did my face scrunch up in disgust and 2) did I think it was salty?

I’m happy to report that neither happened after taking my first sip of Anchor Steam Beer. I don’t know if my taste buds truly have changed and there’s a fighting chance we’ll find something I like or if I permanently damaged my taste buds eating the world’s hottest Danish pancakes a few weeks ago and this whole thing will be a bust.

Either way, I’d say this beer was not awful. It reminded me of Blue Moon, which had left a lasting impression from years back when I had tried a sip and thought it tasted like a cookie. Cookie beer - that’s something I could probably get behind.

Anchor Steam was not super bitter or anything like that, but I think what I tasted at first was not worth enduring for the “cookie” element I got after. My taste buds were like “Wait, what, what is this? Yuck! Yuck! Hold on … cookie?” Another sip, same thing.

So overall, this beer would be worth a sip, if someone offered it, but not the whole bottle and not by choice if there was something else available to drink.

Ok, back to me. It’s time to get serious. This won’t be easy, but I’m confident I’ll find the right beer. And again, any suggestions, let me know. This isn’t limited to Massachusetts beers – it doesn’t matter where the beers are from.

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